By MSGR. THOMAS J. MCSWEENEY
Religion Columnist

White lie, n. a minor or harmless lie. Who hasn't at some time found an excuse for fibbing?

Either the truth would embarrass the other person or be too inconvenient for ourselves, so we lie. From "Tell him I'm not here!"to "Honestly, you look thinner in that dress!" harmless face-saving lies. No big thing.

No big thing unless you read St Augustine (354 - 430 A.D.). Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church and one of the most intriguing and influential Christian writers of all time.

He makes the case that even the slightest intention to mislead others in their pursuit of truth is a sin. His stand is unequivocalwhenever you tell a lie, you violate your sacred obligation to the truth. You cannot be a liar and still pretend to serve God who is Himself truth. But what about those times when we are just silent and keep the truth to ourselves? Silence is vague.

Somebody can take from your silence whatever they want. That isn't lying, is it? Well, to Augustine it is.

Many of us would probably quibble, saying that we cannot be held responsible for the way someone interprets our silence. We might argue that it would be the same as a listener getting a different meaning than we intended because a word we use has more than one meaning.

The crux of the matter is our intention: neither silence nor vagueness protects us from lying if we intend to deceive our listener. Oh, by the way, should our deception fail, we are still lying because that was what we were trying to do. According to Augustine even if we speak the truth but know that for some reason it won't be believed and that is what you want, you have lied.

Wow! You would have to be a saint to live up to that standard!

But if we see a lie, the intention to deceive, as a betrayal of our shared search for truth, Augustine's arguments are understandable. Lying is a barrier to that search.

Studies in the dynamics of communication show that people who lie often begin to believe their lies are truth. A sort of cognitive dissonance sets in whereby one's mind becomes so conflicted that truth is unrecognizable. Lying also affects relationships. Once a deception has been practiced in matters where all should be fair and open, confidence can never be completely restored. Indeed, the worst of all deceptions is to think one thing and say another.

It cheats both the other and one's self. Other sins are easier after that.

Augustine would be the first to say he knew something about sins. His mother Monica prayed for his conversion, even as he lived a rather earthy life. Yet he struggled for years with his own search for truth. Finding his answer in God, he then spent the rest of his life trying to live out his belief in the One Eternal Truth.

I suspect that most people aren't ready to swear off the occasional "white lie." But as we travel on our own search, we might reflect a little more not only on what truth is, but Who Truth is. As Augustine prayed: O Omnipotent Good, who cares for each of us as if no one else existed and for all of us as if we were all but one! Your law is truth and truth is Yourself. You made me for Yourself, and my heart is restless until it rests in You.

For a free copy of The Christopher News Note, SEEING AS GOD SEES, write to The Christophers, 12 East 48th Street, New York, NY 10017.

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